The evident success of the reform stimulated neighbouring States (who should be the most competent judges), and in 1896 Idaho and Utah adopted it. Their leading public men speak in the same terms of the effect, and a healthy stimulus has been given to social legislation. In 1906 the same proposal was submitted to the male electors of Oregon, and it was only lost by ten thousand votes. The loss was easily accounted for by the violent opposition of the saloon-keepers in the State. Ex-President Roosevelt has repeatedly advocated the reform in his own State, and the movement is steadily gaining ground in the other States.[13] In England the movement has advanced far beyond the dreams of the women of half a century ago. Miss Blackburn gives an ample chronicle of the progress made since 1850, but I have (in writing the biography of George Jacob Holyoake) been able to see a good deal of correspondence of the period that throws light on the early group. Holyoake, a faithful disciple of the great Owen, had endeavoured for many years to stir women to revolt. As early as 1847 he had drawn up a programme (published in the _Free Press_), according to which they were to found a journal, hold meetings with women speakers, and agitate for legal and political justice. Ten years later, when he was in close relation with Miss Harriet Martineau, Miss Bessie R. Parkes (later Mrs. Belloc), Miss Barbara L. Smith (Mrs. Bodichon), Mrs. Stansfeld, Mrs. Crawford, and many other advanced women, they founded the _Woman's Journal_, and began to increase. In the same year the rights of women figured prominently for the first time in an election-manifesto--that issued by Mr. Holyoake in his abortive campaign at Tower Hamlets. He had also issued as a pamphlet Mrs. J. S. Mill's article, "Are Women fit for Politics?" Mill himself lent his powerful advocacy to the cause, and in 1869 issued his famous _Subjection of Women_. The growing feeling was now stimulated by the agitation over the second Reform Bill in 1866-7, and strong parties were formed in Manchester and London. Disraeli himself assented to the principle, and within a fortnight a petition obtained 1,499 signatures. A great public meeting was held in Manchester (where Miss Lydia Belcher had been then working for two or three years) in 1868, and was addressed by Dr. Pankhurst and other well-known public men. Mr. Jacob Bright was another staunch supporter in the North. At London, in the following year, a very striking meeting was addressed by Professor Fawcett, Charles Kingsley, John Morley, Lord Houghton, Charles Dilke, P. A. Taylor, James Stansfeld, and Professor Masson. Mrs. Fawcett and Viscountess Amberley were now associated with the movement, and Professor Francis Newman and Mr. J. Chamberlain were quoted in favour of it.